Severus Snape is undoubtedly a man who has had more than his fair share of adversity. And he is also a man twisted by his experiences. What childhood experiences, only hinted at in the books, helped mold him into the Death Eater he later became? One-shot.

Eileen Prince, later Snape, had
always been a strange woman; Slytherin through and through, of
course, but odd with it. There was an obsessiveness in her nature
that made her more than usually ruthless. When it seemed that no man
would have her for a wife, she set out to make a man marry
her.

Tobias Snape, though unfortunately a
Muggle, turned out to be a perfect candidate. A love potion slipped
in his drink resulted in a one-night affair, which Tobias decided the
next day would remain just that. But Eileen had planned for such an
eventuality. It was more than just his propensity to drink any drink
placed in front of him that made him a good candidate. He was an
old-fashioned sort of man, with old-fashioned morals. When Eileen
showed up at his door later, claiming to be carrying his child, they
were married within the week. On their wedding night, she revealed
two truths that soured their relationship immediately. First, that
she was not in fact pregnant. Second, that she was a witch. When he
refused to believe the full truth of the second one, she proved it by
taking up her wand and making the pillows fly around the room. He
hated her for the marriage she had tricked him into, but she
terrified him. For a long time after that, she would be the tyrant in
their relationship. Whenever his ideas contradicted hers, she would
invariably win the argument by taking out her wand and toying with
it, mock-playful. Tobias would stare at the thin strip of wood and
gulp, his face going pasty-white with fear. He could never forget the
bizarre sight of his pillows dancing about near the ceiling.

There might never have been a child
but for Eileen's sudden longing for a son to carry on her magic.
She had to use more love potions, but at last she could proclaim to
her bitter husband that her son grew inside her. And so
Severus Snape was born, treated as if he belonged solely to Eileen.
Certainly Tobias wanted no part in the child, who from the beginning
shared his mother's unfortunate features.

When Severus was young, just at the
age when most children develop an obsession with the art that can be
made while eating paste and making a mess, he found some of his
mother's parchment and ink. Spreading the papers on the floor in
his room, he stuck his pale fingers into the jar of ink. Using them
as impromptu paintbrushes, he spread the ink over one parchment and
then another in a fashion that many might term "modern art." When
his mother came in to find ink spattered liberally over the parchment
and the floor, she stood speechless for a moment. Then she began to
yell. Phrases such as "ungodly mess" and "waste of good
parchment and ink" came out, along with less pleasant things.
Severus, who had really only wanted to make some pretty pictures for
his darling mother, began to cry, which only made things worse.
Eileen could not abide tears, and it was lucky for Severus indeed
that he had never been a whiny baby.

It was not long after that when
Severus began to understand his mother better, and his efforts to
impress her soon paid off, in tiny, rare smiles and sparse words of
praise. He stood straight, conducted himself well at the dinner
table, and most of all he remained seen, but not heard. He was a
sharp boy, and he had learned that to keep his mother happy it was
best to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Sometime in those years, the
relationship between Tobias and his mother changed. When he was seven
years old, his father waited until his wife was asleep and snapped
her wand in half. In the morning, when she woke up, she began
screaming at him. But when he raised his hand against her, she fell
silent. Thus a new era in the Snape household began. No longer was
Tobias Snape the downtrodden one; now he was the tyrant. Eileen was
no longer allowed out of the house; Tobias feared her buying a new
wand, or enlisting the help of powerful friends. And whenever he had
too much to drink, or when she angered him, he would smack her around
while Severus cowered in the corner, helpless to save his beloved
mother but too horrified to look away. Often his father would scream,
"Sic Semper Tyrannis"—thus always to the tyrant—as if
his wife's former domination of him gave him to right to leave
bruises on her body. Later Severus would remember this, and him, with
loathing. And always there was the helpless horror of watching the
woman who was the light of his life, his anchor and protector,
reduced to shielding herself as best she could as a man much taller
and bulkier than she rained blows upon her.

And yet Tobias never turned upon
him. Severus learned that his self-imposed unobtrusiveness, which he
had developed to please his mother, also served to shield him from
his father's abuse. And so he learned what, for a long time, he
would regard as the most important lesson he had ever learned: Keep
your head down and your mouth shut.

Of course, there were always his
mother's lessons to consider when he thought of his father. His
mother told him that Muggles were lesser beings than wizards, that
his father was inferior to the two of them, who had magic in their
blood. While he watched his father beat his mother, he also realized
that even if a Muggle bested a witch or wizard, it was with
pointless, artless violence. And he vowed that he would always live
up to his heritage as a wizard.

Years later, when he wrote his
identity inside his copy of Advanced Potion-Making, it
wouldn't be his birth name. It would be his true identity, the one
he had grown up believing was the only part of him that mattered: The
Half-Blood Prince.

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